Men’s Varsity Win for CUPLC in 2023 - A decade of victory
Cambridge 692.27 - Oxford 682.05 Results
After having won the Varsity Match for 9 years straight, the pressure was on to take it to double digits. The men rose leisurely and made their journey to Iffley Road to watch the conclusions of the Women’s match. The Light Blues did the required job, adding the Cambridge name yet again to the Women’s trophy.
Our Men’s team once again was a slick, elite unit, following on from the previous year. Under the guidance of the Men’s Captain, Raghul Parthipan, the team had focussed all training on maximising Varsity performances, putting aside prospects of individual glory.
The weigh-ins went smoothly for most. We had a great team of willing helpers on the day. For example, Charlie Cambridge, not wanting to waste precious energy on putting jam on his bagel, secured the assistance of two of them (Nick Scott and Guilherme Nettesheim). After everyone had consumed nourishment, we got onto squats. Santosh recovered from an unsteady walkout to finish with a sizable 175kg. Rising talent Brandon Teh squatted 222.5kg with little difficulty. Osa Iluobe, who had been suffering with a back injury, managed to move 237.5kg, adding invaluable points to our score. Raghul secured the heaviest Cambridge squat again with 242.kg. The biggest was taken by the Dark Blue Charlie Kidd, with 290kg. Despite this, we were in a good place moving forward.
During the Bench, the lifters from both sides continued to build their totals. In the first flight, Oliver Little (finally making a long overdue appearance in the Varsity team) benched a massive 165kg to take the biggest bench. Sebastian Cornwell was the second biggest Cambridge bencher with 147.5kg. Akash Sengupta added a very respectable 125kg for a 5kg PB.
The meet only starts when the bar hits the ground. There were great pulls on either side, with only four attempts missed across all attempts! Alek Radic settled with 262.5kg after narrowly missing 277.5kg due to grip. Our biggest deadlifter of last year, Shubang Nagalotimath, moved 285kg cleanly, securing the largest total amongst the Cambridge lifters (637.5kg). And Charlie Cambridge took our biggest pull of 290kg.
We had done it once again. The Light Blues improved on their overall score by nearly 5% compared to the previous year, and we secured our 10th consecutive victory. Raghul was the top lifter of the day with 94.96 points, winning an SBD prize package, followed by Charlie Kidd (94.89) and Brandon (92.5)
Raghul extends his thanks to Oxford for organising a great event, the CUPLC executive committee, all the helpers, and, of course, to the Men’s Team. This marks the end of an era. Over the past 10 years the club has grown massively, from a team where only one or two lifters would even compete, to an extremely competitive force in UK powerlifting. All the remaining members who were around for this defining era would leave after the conclusion of the academic year. And so we begin a new, hopefully glorious, epoch for the club.
